'I lost motivation after not making Olympics'

A championship-winning BMX rider has said she almost lost her hunger for competing after she was not selected for the Olympics.

Sasha Pardoe won gold at the European Freestyle Championships in Switzerland in 2024, taking the women's title with a score of 88.06 on her second run.

It came shortly after the 20-year-old from Kinver, Staffordshire, failed to be selected for Team GB ahead of the 2024 Paris Games.

She told BBC Midlands Today that while she would never fall out of love with BMX itself, not being selected for the team had affected her love for competition.

Despite this, Pardoe said she started working towards the European Championships, which she "somehow" won, describing it as an "amazing" experience.

"It definitely brought back my love for competing," she said. "I'll never lose my love for BMX in general. I just hadn't been as motivated."

Pardoe was due to compete at the 2025 World Championships in Saudi Arabia in November but minutes before qualifying, she fractured her shoulder blade when she fell during practice.

She then suffered the same injury when she returned to action, which meant she had been unable to compete until the National BMX Freestyle Series at RAF Shawbury in Shropshire at the weekend, where she finished second.

The BMX park was built at the site's Hanger 59 before the Paris Olympics and Pardoe said it was good to have somewhere she could practice close to where she lived.

Her sights are now firmly set on the LA 2028 Olympics and she said the thought of the next two years of preparation was both "exciting" and "nerve-racking".

But after her 2024 experience, she said competing at the Olympics was "not the be-all and end-all".

"It is something I really want to do," she said. "I want to get it checked off and do my best at it but there is a lot more to life than just the Olympics."

Her coach Declan Brooks, who won a bronze medal in BMX freestyle at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, said Pardoe "goes big" when she competes.

"We need to work on a few big tricks but we've got two years to do that so I don't see that being much of a problem," he added.

Speaking of her injury before the World Championships, Brooks said: "It was a tough one to watch because the World Championships are always a dream for our riders."

He said the hectic schedule was "a lot" but the riders trained hard and prepared in the best way possible.

"I feel like we're going to have a good two years," he added.

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